File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-sy.9706, message 172


Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 09:44:44 +1000
From: sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright)
Subject: Negri returning to Italy


The gist of the articles posted by Harry is that Negri has agreed to return
to Italy at the beginning of July, to serve out the remainder of his
sentence (of which more than 3 years remain). It's possible, however, that
the sentence might be commuted or modified in some way (e.g. day release).

Negri declared himself to be "defeated, but not a criminal". It also seems
that if he had stayed on in France another year he would have been eligible
for French citizenship. His intention, it is said, is to help resolve the
question of those exiles who left Italy as a consequence of the state
crackdown of the late 70s and early 80s, and to clear up their situation
within a changing Italian and EU legal framework.

Franco Piperno will fly to Paris to accompany him back, and there seems to
be a plan to try and  persuade Oreste Scalzone to go back too.

According to Piperno, "in returning to Italy and going to jail, Toni Negri
admits and recognises a defeat which is not his alone, but is that of an
entire generation which attempted a profound social transformation of Italy
only to fail, above all in a political sense . . . Toni Negri closes the
phase of exile but clearly creates an opening [una fase di uscita] for
those who are still in prison, and for the recovery of intellectual
energies for Italy's transformation".

I saw a brief interview with Negri on the Italian news this morning (TG 1
gets relayed here), where the main point he made was that the state itself
was not innocent.

It will be enlightening to say what sort of debate emerges within the
Italian movement about this, and whether discussion can move beyond
divisions first defined in the early 80s regarding "disassociation".

Has anyone seen reports in the English-language press?

Steve





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